Posts Tagged ‘Ayn Rand’

“I want you. I’m much more of an animal than you think. I wanted you from the first moment I saw you — and the only thing I’m ashamed of is that I did not know it. I did not know why the brightest moments I found were the ones in your presence, where I could lift my head to look at you. I did not know the nature of what I felt, nor the reason. I know it now. That is all I want. I want you in my bed — and you are free of me for all the rest of your time. There’s nothing you’ll have to pretend — don’t think of me, don’t feel; don’t care — I do not want your mind, your will, your being or your soul, so long as it’s to me that you will come for that lowest one of your desires. I am an animal who wants nothing but the sensation of pleasure which you despise — but I want it from you. You’d give up any height of virtue for it, while I — I haven’t any to give up. There’s none I seek or wish to reach. I am so low that I would exchange the greatest sight of beauty in the world for the sight of your figure in the cab of a railroad engine. And seeing it, I would not be able to see it indifferently. You don’t have to fear that you’re now dependent upon me. It’s I who will depend on any whim of yours. You’ll have me any time you wish, anywhere, on any terms. Did you call it the obscenity of my talent? It’s such that it gives you a safer hold on me than on any other property you own. You may dispose of me as you please — I’m not afraid to admit it — I have nothing to protect from you and nothing to reserve. You think that this is a threat to your achievement, but it is not to mine. I will sit at my desk, and work, and when the things around me get hard to bear, I will think that for my reward I will be in your bed that night. Did you call it depravity? I am much more depraved than you are: you hold it as your guilt, and I — as my pride. I’m more proud of it than of anything I’ve done. If I’m asked to name my proudest attainment, I will say: I have slept with ___________. I had earned it.”

Either that, or hit ’em with “Who is John Galt?”, “Chicken or the egg?”. . . “What is love?” — “I don’t know.”

Never fails, never hurts, always safe.

“They used to rush through here, and it was wonderful to watch, it was the hurry of men who knew where they were going and were eager to get there. Now they’re hurrying because they are afraid. It’s not a purpose that drives them, it’s fear. They’re not going anywhere, they’re escaping. And I don’t think they know what it is that they want to escape. They don’t look at one another. They jerk when brushed against. They smile too much, but it’s an ugly kind of smiling: it’s not joy, it’s pleading. I don’t know what it is that’s happening to the world. Oh, well, who is John Galt?”

“I don’t like that empty piece of slang. What does it mean? Where did it come from?”

“Nobody knows.”

“Why do people keep saying it? Nobody seems to explain just what it stands for, yet they all use it as if they knew the meaning.”

“Why does it disturb you?”

“I don’t like what they seem to mean when they say it.”

“I don’t either.”

It’s not so much as the answers we give or get, but the questions we ask. A question can exist without an answer. But there would be no need for the latter without the former.

“He shook his head. This was not the time for his old doubts. He felt that he could forgive anything to anyone, because happiness was the greatest agent of purification. He felt certain that every living being wished him well tonight. He wanted to meet someone, to face the first stranger, to stand disarmed and open, and to say, “Look at me.” People, he thought, were as hungry for a sight of joy as he had always been–for a moment’s relief from that gray load of suffering which seemed so unexplicable and unnecessary. He had never been able to understand why men should be unhappy.“